jackd

So last night I was up a little too late, a little too wasted, I turn on HSN and there before my eyes is the amazing Todd English Knife Set. I needed knives and I had the cash. I always wanted to get something from HSN and, being a devotee of Home Movies thought "What better than getting a knife set while wasted.". My only regret is not getting flexpay.

2007.1.22

So I'm riding the bus to work today and there's a rather loud, undereducated person standing at the front of the busing talking at the bus driver about various things. I say talking at because I never heard anything from the bus driver; maybe he just wasn't talking as loudly, but I assume he was doing the usual bus driver thing by letting the nut rand and going about his job. Anyway, I only hear bits and snippets, but as I'm getting up to leave I hear something about her wanting to raise them thinking homosexuality is alright and god giving people AIDS. I really wish I had heard the whole conversation, because I didn't really know how to respond. I mean, I'm taking public transportation to work and get to hear people vocally advocating my infection with a terminal illness. I'm not about to advocate laws limiting free speech, but I'm not going to let that kind of shit get by unchecked. Unfortunately all I got out was this:
Me: I hope Jesus can find a way--
Him: Jesus [unintelligible]
Me: --to get past your bigotry. Get over it.
No one on that bus besides me had either the desire or motivation to say anything to him. And I doubt I changed his mind, but at least the people on the bus know that ideas like that won't go by unchecked. More importantly, though, I think this situation is a metaphor for a number of things in my life. Maybe I'm not going to play some large role in the grand scheme of things, but I can play my role. I can fill in those cracks and crevices left blank by the neglect of others. There are a lot of things I love that not many others do, and it's up to me to demonstrate that love to the world, because even fewer will do that. It's about time I accept responsibility for my fate and get started on fixing the world again. I'm gonna die with a hammer in my hand, lawd, lawd, gonna die with a hammer in my hand.
On the plus side, I found $20 in the snow on the way to the bus and I successfully made a Soothing Elixure.

2006.1.18

So, I bought this old Military van, which I expect to provide me with unending fun.

2006.10.5

I am really, really elated. Why, you ask? Because I have achieved that which was previously inconcievable, if only for it's lack of practicality. I got a 486-25Mhz laptop with 4MiB of RAM working as a serial terminal to my FreeBSD box. But here's the kicker - the serial and two channels of audio are being sent on THE SAME CAT5 CABLE!! UNBELIEVABLE!! Yes, I realize this is nothing special, but I did it and it works and I can set up mpd so I can use my PC as a jukebox and browse the web in the basement, which, though not fantastic, is useful. I just wanted to post to my blog update my website with some non-terrible information about what is going on.

2006.06.15

It's 14:48 and I've been up since 07:00 yesterday. What sort of wonderful events could spur one to shun sleep (minus ~20 min of lying on the floor) for so long? Moving.

That's right, it's that time again. Time to pretend you're pretty much all ready as an excuse to further procrastinate until the harried rush to get it all done before you have to move out. I worked my ass off to get that house reasonably clean, and some good friends helped out until ~4AM. Unfortunately, this was apparently not enough. Despite the things I thought the landlord would be angry with - the huge pile of trash and my broken-down car, she;s apparently "going to have to have everything professionally cleaned" which sounds like "I'm going to leave it and charge you for something that didn't happen" to me.

On top of this, I'm leaving for Boston for 5 days at 6AM tomorrow. I also just talked to my roommate and she locked the only key to our new apartment inside while I was talking to her on the phone. Now that's some swizzlesticks. (FYI: "swizzlesticks" is something one of my teachers used to say when he was trying not to swear. It's the only one I can remember ATM). I have way too much junk, too much furniture and too many printouts. I say this every time I move, but one of these days I'm really going to get rid of it. And then probably go get some more. Ah, life, will your absurdity never cease?

2006.05.30

WooHoo! It's update time, eh? Well yesterday I had one of these occasionally recurring episodes where things tend to go awry for a period of time accompanied by a general feeling of dread. I was waiting for the bus but apparently it came early, so I was waiting for the next one. This car drove past and the guys inside said something and kind of gestured. I considered turning around to see what was up since, considering it was a holiday (=drunk people "having fun"), there was a possibility of some sort of harassment. Anyway, I just kept staring into space and waiting for the bus. All of a sudden someone slammed a water balloon into my head.

My first reaction was to laugh and I looked back - it was indeed the guys in the car and they were laughing and got back inside and sped off. I just turned around and continued staring off into space and waiting for the bus, feeling the cool water drip down my back - it was pretty hot out anyway. Ah, that brought back some good memories of being bullied. Being that this was the sort of thing that would've sent me into a suicidal/homicidal depression in the past, I was quite happy that, well, I wasn't in one. The bus came shortly thereafter and I hopped on and grabbed a seat, reconsidering my reaction. Should I have gotten pissed off? Yelled? Thrown something at them? No reaction could change the fact that at 22, I'm apparently still a target for this kind of shit and, in their lower twenties, they're still apparently amused by this shit.

I also couldn't help but think about if three white kids in a predominantly white neighborhood hit a black kid standing at a bus stop with a water balloon and drove off (my situation was the reverse of this). Wouldn't one assume there was at least a partially racial motivation for that? As much as it once seemed otherwise, after living in lower-income areas I'm now thoroughly convinced that living through racism and poverty will not necessarily do anything to make you less money-centric or prejudiced or more selfless and open-minded. However, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they did the same thing to any skinny, nerdy-looking black kids they came across, so I'm much more apt to file it under general social bullshit than anything.

I was planning on working on some stuff when I got down to the south side, but as much as I didn't want it to, this event was still bothering me. That deep internal rage was starting to seep through my being. I was, nevertheless, determined to keep my motivation and not stop caring about humanity just because it had fucked me once again. I was also coming down from quite a bit of coffee and some general depression was setting in that certainly wasn't helping things. Well, I got home and I couldn't find one of my pieces of art glass. When I'm having a shitty streak, this is not what I want to happen. My roommate thought it was on the table downstairs (where I thought it was), but I didn't see it anywhere. I asked if anyone was over that day - sure enough, the neighbors, who we'd just recently started hanging out with. I hate to throw blame because I often do it prematurely, but I had (and still have) the feeling that I'm never going to see it again. This is what you get for letting people come over to your house. Well, that's OK, I remembered I had some whisky left and picked up a Jarrito's lime soda earlier so I figured I'd just make some drinks and relax. And then I came across the empty bottle...my roommate offered to replace it, but I really didn't feel like drowning out my sorrows like I'd been doing for months, so I decided to just sit and brood. Well, after some Tea and some cigarettes I decided that yes, I still would like to work on stuff.

The AC wasn't working, so I figured I'd see what I could see. Testing confirmed relay voltage at the AC unit, but no power...hmmm. I checked out the fuse panel and it wasn't even hooked up! There was a disconnected circuit breaker, so I hooked up the neutral and ground and went to check on it. It wasn't going, but I had forgotten to put the disconnect bar back in. I was going about that when I realized that the white wire was hooked up to a red wire on the AC, which imnplies 240VAC. I checked the specs on the AC and sure enough, it was 240. I didn't have a 240VAC circuit breaker and I didn't want to overload the dryer one so I just wired it right into the bus bars (which is pretty much like sticking a penny in a fuse socket). On top of this, the line was maybe 10 ga and it was running 240VAC @ 20A, but hey, I didn't install it. It's the electrician's fault if it's underrated. I also happened to notice there was a 240VAC line running over normal 12 ga wire with the ground used as neutral that seemed to be feeding the next door apartment. I'm guessing this guy does his own wiring. Anyway, we flipped the switch and it fired up. The wire hasn't started melting yet and I'm going to pick up a breaker soon to finalize it. I stayed up working out some specs for my boombox and went to bed feeling pretty accomplished (and not ridiculously hot).

So what's the point of all this? I'm not really sure, but I've recently been re-evaluating my loss of faith in hermit-icism (yes, I made that term up). After a life of mostly rejecting society and a desire to sequester myself in some far and inaccessable place to follow my own whims, I had reevaluated the role of other people in my life. I decided that there were some definite benefits to social interaction and my extreme introspection was alienating me. If I couldn't communicate my understanding to others, what use was it? How much was I missing out on by keeping myself from the stimulating concepts of others? Not much; most people just aren't all that interesting, stimulating, uplifting, fun...valuable to me. That sounds awfully selfish, but it's the truth. I don't want them to die, I don't want them to change (though it would be nice), I recognize that we all have our own unique and valuable contributions to the world, many of which I'll never understand. But my contributions do not need to directly involve most other people in the world. I have enough shit to think about, work on, and enjoy on my own. Furthermore, all the people I care about in life I've met in spite of or because of my general distaste for social interaction. In almost all circumstances, my efforts to reach out past the normal experiences I enjoy and am inclined to seek out, instead of broadening my mind, have narrowed it. This limitation, however, is not so limiting - by defining that which I have no need to focus on, it gives me more energy to focus on that which I truly care about.

New date format! Woo! Uh, yeah. So, I added some pictures of me to the about section and put up the lyrics to a few songs I transcribed. Songs you should hear: The Unicorns: Emasculate the Masculine; The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Cabin Fever; The Mountain Goats: No Children.

10.02.2006

I had my first mugging yesterday. After having an extremely bizarre and stressful hour I passed a driveway a block from my house and a vehicle stopped just short of me. I heard the door open and looked back. There were two young Latino kids walking behind me and I started running immediately. They pursued me and I stopped by my front door since I didn't want to go in. One said "Give us your bread" and then they started hitting me. Thankfully, they were surprisingly weak and didn't have any weapons, but then I saw another one get out of the van and start coming so I just said "Alright, alright, just chill the fuck out" and started getting my wallet from my inside pocket. But before I could even unzip my coat they grabbed my shoulder bag and ran into the van. I stood on the stoop as they drove down the block and got my keys out in case I needed to run inside, but I didn't go in until they were gone. Contents of bag: 1 compact fluorescent; a dissertation on consciousness; a gang box and piece of metal for it; a painter's tarp and some mail (including a rebate check for my car insurance). So all-in-all, I guess that wasn't bad for my first time, but the proximity to my house disturbs me. I stayed inside with the lights out and drank for an hour and then watched Taxi Driver. I think they drove past a few times, but I didn't want to stick my head out the shades - we've got big, low windows that would be pretty easy to get in through if you broke them. People. I just don't know about them sometimes.

Doo-dee-doo. Man, I could've sworn I had something I intended on writing, but now - the proverbial tabula rosa. Meh. I had a really annoyingly hectitic morning that brought with it the usual OHMYGODIT'SALLCOMINGATMEWAYTOOFASTANDICAN'THANDLEITANDI'MGOINGTOFREAKTHEFUCKOUT feeling. Don't know if you can relate, but it's a persistent theme in my life. And when I'm at work, I definately cannot freak the fuck out, at least if I want to retain some semblance of sanity and professionalism, which I understand is useful in the workplace. Then again, I've been called "twisted" and "really weird" by co-workers already (although in an endearing way, it seemed), so I'm not sure what standing I'm in right now in that regard anyway. Thankfully, it was somewhat tamed by a sense of overall weariness and despair so at least it wasn't so tense. Or mayhbe that's because I had less coffee. Who knows? If it's you or someone you know, drop me a line.

Point being, everything turned out OK, the world did not end, I had a ton of Thai food for lunch, listened to The Mountain Goats excessively, it's really dreary outside, I made some coffee that I brought to work, and I'm drinking it and feeling better. So that's rockin'. Now! More banal commentary on things that I do: Posting things online: For some reason, I try to limit this random commentary to this website, because I imagine no one reads it, except for the occasional friend, and I like to pretend that because this is hosted on 64-bit hardware running NetBSD on a system that evolved from a BBS and I edit the HTML by hand in vi over ssh it's not _really_ a blog. And that's your banal commentary on things that I do for the day.

30.08.2005

Wow, the internet is finally pissing me off. After registering for some social-networking sites and wasting shitloads of time taking banal quizzes and link-hopping constantly I think it's finally enough. He says as he makes a post to his website.... Alright, so maybe it's not the internet at large, just the way I use it. There's so much content and so many interesting things, but I never stay with any of them long enough to get a thorough understanding and it's pissing me off.

It also highly annoys me that I get social anxiety on the fucking internet now, apparently. I spend so much time thinking about what I'm writing, going over it again and again, trying to get it perfefct (I'm leaving that - that's the good stuff), and then I say "fuck it, I'm just going to write whatever, it's just random shit on the net", but then I come back to it and I see it again and I hate it. It stays forever - that fucks with my head. At least IRL I can pretend like people forget things. I really don't know what to think of it anymore; time for a break, perhaps.

Then again, it's probably just my mood today. I don't want to be at work at all, which is kind of odd for me, I usually don't mind. I just want to wander off to some quiet alley or woods or something and sit there. Too much shit in my head, too much to think about, too much fucking feedback. Gah.

I wish I could just tell my boss I don't feel like working; I don't feel like talking to people; I don't feel like being here and he would let me leave. I wish I could say, "You know, I'm actually pretty fucking depressed right now and I need some time to deal with my problems, please just let me go home and I'll work a double-shift tomorrow or something. But it doesn't work that way. Ah well, fucking life.

09.06.2005

Well, it seems whoever stole my stuff passed some bad checks, which the bank said were clearly forgeries, so I won't have to pay them. Score. I've got to do a bunch of paperwork for them and the police, but I have some information - hopefully it's enough to give them some leads. I live kind of inbetween a ghetto area (west) and a trendy area (east) and although there's tons of great people, there's some riff-raff as well. Some friends of mine that live a couple blocks west have been randomly punched in the face by some guys that hang out by the gas station down the street (they think). They're all white and the assailant (probably the same guy) was black and just started shit with them for no reason and none of them fought back.

So apparently last night the girlfriend of one of the people that got punched was pretty drunk and walking back home at ~12AM and someone told her to give him the backpack she was carrying. She swiftly kicked him in the balls and, when he wouldn't go down, slammed an unopened beer bottle into his head. And he ran off. So that brightened my day.

03.06.2005

I've had probably the worst month ever. It culminated this week when some people I let stay at my house stole my IDs, Social Security Card, checkbook and birth certificate. It's honestly rather surprising to me that they managed to find all that in the course of a few days, but then again, I'm not the kind of person that goes around looking for ways to screw people that show me hospitality. On top of that, last night a friend and I were biking (~12am) and someone opened their car door into us as they passed. Neither one of us fell off, so I guess they weren't trying to knock us off or just sucked, but it would've been really funny if one of us did and got our heads crushed under their back tire. Ha ha fucking ha. I almost caught up with them, but I haven't biked in a while and my smoker's lungs caught up with me. They pathetically ditched down a road and backtracked. I don't know why I ever had hope for humanity - nice try God, but it looks like you're going to have to give it another run. Meh. I'm going outside to take another 15 minutes off my life.

16.03.2005

[Insert banal rambling]. Note: If you are not Ross, stop reading now, the following is a super-secret message for ROSS ONLY!@@@!@1: I'm an INTP.

15.12.2004

Wow. An update. Bet you thought that would never happen. But then again, it has been...8 months. And I know you all (I have over 27,000 unique page hits daily) have been waiting anxiously. "When's he going to update next?" my huge posse of fans thought. Well, now they (and you, in case you aren't one of them and have just discovered the amazing wonderfulness of my website) know.
Did you notice how I make the dates? DD-MM-YYYY. Though sometimes I use the format YYYY-MM-DD in an attempt to appease the foolish Americans and their bizarre dating system. I am American, but since I make my dates like that, I am better than all other Americans that do not. Actually, I just think it makes sense, I really don't mean to confuse people, but why wouldn't you go from smallest time unit to largest? Or largest to smallest? Either one makes more sense. Just like standard measurement, I guess I may never understand.
Also, I have uploaded my bookmarks file. It's not current, but then again, none of mine are, I forgot to back it up once when I reformatted, and I usually just FURL things these days. Besides, I'm planning on converting it to a del.icio.us-style list. That is to say, with non-heirarchical categories. I don't know why I just don't use del.icio.us, I have an account, but for some reason, I just enjoy the local lists. Plus, it would take a LONG time to put them all in. On the off-chance that I ever code it, I'll probably make it interoperable with del.icio.us and everyone can rejoice, but don't get your hopes up.

04.05.2004

YAY!!! I finally got my website up. I'll be adding sections as time passes. For now, there's just the about section and the links section. But not really the links sections...hopefully that's be up in a day or so. Fun stuff.